It felt wrong, this heat. Sweat dripped from my nose in time with the rain falling from a brick sky.
‘Nervous in the service, then?’ Needle japed, suddenly behind me.
I ground my teeth. ‘I do not like this place.’
He smiled. ‘Be worried if you did, luv. Be worried if you did. But it does grow on you.’
It was interminable, the slog through these horrid, labyrinthine tunnels. But the little thief never wavered, turning at every intersection without hesitation as if he were merely walking to market.
‘Why won’t you be taking any payment?’ I asked.
‘Kindness of me bleeding heart?’
I snorted.
‘Bug-eating cultists always have a trinket or two worth a rub and a tug. I’ll take my share from what they have.’ He looked sidelong at Hraki and whispered, ‘I don’t need to be paid up front before facing danger. Neither did his sister.’
The last was not a whisper.
* * *
‘Fuck me,’ Needle cried. ‘But that's a bloody great mushroom!’
The cistern it occupied once would have held enough water to wet the lips of an entire ward of Khyber. No longer. Only the columns supporting the arched ceiling disturbed the mass of the fungus. Yellow clusters of smaller — almost tumorous — growths dotted the bright purple mass where the columns lanced upward. It was luminous, glowing softly with a shifting, pulsating light.
I touched the noose about my throat. Had the Goodson ever seen such a thing?
I looked to the Garan, but he shook his head.
‘Even my flames would take days to burn this to nothing.’
Days we might not have.
‘I’m not crossing that,’ Hraki said.
‘You must,’ I insisted.
A mistake. One does not insist a Valkuran Dragonman do anything. Not unless one is prepared to back words with steel and shield.
‘Another word from your fat mouth, Coinpurse, and I’ll have you.’
I swallowed hard, nodding. I knew how to use a sword, I did. A paper-thin protection that blade felt now, facing the Valkuran's shaking axe.
‘And since you’re so insistent,’ Hraki added. ‘You may go first.’
I swallowed again. Yes. An act of courage, of leadership, might make me seem more to these men than a walking coinpurse. The great mushroom had swelled to take up so much of the cistern that there was no place where I could walk that was not atop it. At its centre, where it rose toward the ceiling, I would have to crouch and scrape. I looked back at the men. Hraki stood with his scowl and set jaw. Coal looked impassive. Wei’s face showed concern, or at least what I took for concern. Even Needle’s smirk seemed to have been diluted to a nervous smile.
‘Go on, then.’ Needle gestured towards the cistern entrance. ‘Don’t keep the precious beard waiting.’
Screwing my courage to my breast, I breathed deep and stepped upon the great carpet of fungus, towing Kavin’s body behind me. The surface gave only slightly beneath my sandals, my feet sinking deeply enough that I needed curl my bare toes, for fear of touching the great unclean thing.
Fear was not a luxury I could allow myself. Not amongst this rough company. Another step. Another. I would not let this ... this thing unman me. I was used to being the master. I would show them. Garan, Valkuran and Xiou, alike. I would show the smart-mouthed thief who’d felt the need to trod upon my business. Master yourself, I thought and you will master these men. Even if Needle was necessary to reach our goal, there might prove no need for him to return with us.
Yes.
I smiled. “The best,” he’d claimed to be.
We shall see.
Hraki would be more than happy to do the deed. It worried me some. How best to broach the subject? Wei, at least, seemed likely to side with the thief. Reputation was not enough to keep one alive in Khyber, let alone below it. Needle might have cards left to play, dice left to roll.
Many players in this contest — if, indeed, we all played the same game.
My musings had distracted me long enough that I had made my way far onto the great mushroom. I wanted to look back, but dared not. A sign of weakness, that. Let them think I cared not whether they dared to follow me. When I — a fat coinpurse, as Hraki was so fond of calling me — was across the terrible thing, they would need to follow.
Of course, if they did not, if they left me, there would be no one to naysay their courage above. Should the vile creatures that came for my followers come next for me, only these four would know their shame and cowardice.
Not a comforting thought.
This was something I could believe of Needle — and perhaps the Garan. Hraki, though, would not. Honour, courage, these things were far too important to Valkurans, even one so far from his home. No place in heaven for them unless they died with a blade in their hands. I shuddered, touching the braided silver noose about my throat, and happy that the Goodson required no such sacrifice from His believers.
‘Come on, you lot,’ Needle’s annoying voice echoed over the chamber. I winced at its volume. I couldn’t help it. ‘Light a fire and leap smartly, yeah? Coinpurse is getting away from us.’
A surprise that Needle would be the first one demanding the ruffians follow, but I shrugged, accepting the strange fact. Anything that would get my men moving was comfort to me. It was also a reminder of how far I had travelled away from them and just how exposed I was. Were anything to come for me now, none would reach me in time. Even were they so inclined.
I could feel their footsteps behind me. Strangely, I felt I could almost tell which steps belonged to which man. The power that emanated from each grudging step of Coal’s advance. Needle’s cocky strut, so brash despite such a light touch. Wei, who barely seemed to brush the surface at all. Hraki’s angry stomp sending shocks up my spine. I slowed my progress, hoping they might catch up to me, hoping I was not being obvious.
Hoping to hide my fear of being caught alone.
A large cluster of the yellow growths blocked my path. This time, there was no column rising from their centre. I stopped, peering deeper into a yawning circular chasm. I wrinkled my nose at the smell wafting from within. In the eerie purplish light that emanated from the horrid thing, I saw one of my factors, ripe with decay. He was unrecognisable but for the pendant bearing my house’s sigil. No skin visible that was not covered in the foul growth of swaying, hungry mushrooms.
The body stirred and I leapt back with a cry.
He was dead, but he had moved. My bowels went to water. I meant to turn back. To run. But the angry yells of my men-at-arms told me there was no safety to be had.
From beneath my factor, they rose up, standing like men, but they were not. Their broad caps narrowed to points and would have been almost comical, were it not for phosphorescent pricks of light where a man’s eyes would be, glowing like a devil’s fire. Stalking us, their forms undulated bonelessly. More birthed through small openings, like stool squelching free of the bowels of their master.
From behind me there was a rush of air and a crackle of flame, as if oil had been poured upon a fire. Coal was accessing his bargain with his heathen god. The cistern grew bright, almost as bright as day, as the Garan’s dark hands burned white with heat.
‘Wyrd cast his baleful eye upon you all.’ Hraki poured a great dribbling handful of something vile and black into his mouth.
I held my noose, clawing for the protection of the Goodson, Khyber’s true and proper God, no matter what the cults believed. My breath caught as the silver cord tightened about my neck.
‘Begone!’ I croaked.
They stopped in step, regarding me queerly before they broke against the symbol of my faith, like a wave in the harbour. My men-at-arms were not so lucky. The creatures bypassed me, pouring toward the others. It was almost heretical, but I did hope the Goodson would see fit to offer my heathen guards the protection they needed to survive. I might still need them, after all.
Fire flew from Coal’s hands. Where it struck the creatures, they wilted and fell.
Hraki stood as if rooted, shaking, though I sensed not with fear. I could almost feel the rage wafting from the Valkuran. His mouth frothed, his eyes rolled back in his head, and then, only as the creatures surrounded him, he moved. Axes whirled like things alive, lopping limbs from torsos. Heads from necks. Splitting the creatures as if they were cords of wood.
‘Wyrd! Wyrd! Wyrd!’ he screamed. His god’s name the only word that seemed able to push past his frothing mouth.
At first, Wei’s staff seemed ineffectual. Bludgeoning the creatures did nothing. They swayed, absorbing each blow. The Xiou was unbothered. With a twist of his wrist, the pole came apart and two slender metal blades shone, reflecting Coal’s flames.
Of Needle, there was no sign.
‘There’s a lad,’ his voice whispered in my ear. ‘Keep ‘em off us.’
I turned and the thief was beside me, almost as close as a lover, holding an outstretched-but-unused dirk and watching the creatures slide past us to engage the others.
They fell and they fell, but more rose to take their place. As if Needle’s ‘Vile Truffle’ could vomit out an endless supply, could birth an unending tide.
I had a moment of hope that my chosen instruments would beat back these creatures, that, with the Goodson’s mercy, we would send this Cygaricus back to whatever hell had spawned it.
And then it all went wrong.
Hraki locked eyes with me. His body black with ichor, black as the rotten mushrooms he’d swallowed to fuel his rage. Oily spittle pouring from his mouth, he came for me. Cutting through a wedge of the creatures, he thundered forward like an Eryan cavalry at charge.
I tried to cry out, but my throat had tightened. Fear. Shame. I felt the heat of my bladder emptying down my leg.
Coal and Wei, more men than I, stood firm against Hraki.
Entreating the Goodson, I begged my god to intervene for their heathen lives. A blade nicked across my throat.
‘Let’s see how this plays out, luv.’
An axe thunked into Coal’s spine and the Garan dropped, limp. Hraki stepped over him, but there was some life remaining in the Garan. His burning hands closed about the Valkuran’s ankle and held, vice-like, as Hraki dragged the prostrate sorcerer over the tumourous ground.
Flames licked up the Valkuran’s leg, setting his clothing ablaze. In his frothing turncoat rage, Hraki didn’t notice. His traitorous eyes sought only me.
Agile Wei easily outpaced the burdened — and burning — Valkuran.
Wei hurled one of his blade staves like a javelin. It pierced Hraki’s chest and still he came on, kicking the now-dead Garan from his heel. Hraki threw his axes in rapid succession. Wei blocked the first. The force of the throw snapped his last stave.
Splinters burst free and I felt the sting as one imbedded itself in my forehead. The second axe bit deep into the Xiou’s shoulder. He grunted. As loud a cry as I’d ever heard the curious man voice.
Staggering, Wei grasped the axe. Hraki had stopped his advance, fallen to the flames of a dead Garan, who, even in death, refused to loose his murderer.
A gobbet of something vile swelled in the flames, bursting free to splatter me. I felt the cutpurse cower low at my back. It burned; whether with heat or poison, I knew not. I wiped blood and worse from my brow.
‘That’s it for you, then, luv,’ Needle clucked. He did not seem upset about my discomfort. I have heard that scalp wounds bleed profusely, but this was not something I had ever expected to experience myself.
I tried to wipe the blood from my eyes but could not stay ahead of the flow. Everything had gone dark.
‘Help me,’ I begged. The wound burned, the filth of this place aggravating it.
‘There's going to be no help for you, I’m afraid.’ Needle didn't sound afraid in the least, nor saddened by his statement.
‘What … what do you mean?’
‘You’re the job, yeah?’ he said. As if that explained anything. ‘Been contracted by the Truffle to bring his boys home.’
‘What do you mean?’ I demanded again.
‘Working for spoils? That’s a first-time jobber’s mistake, luv. Mushrooms grow in shit, yeah? I guess shit-brown eyes and shit-for-brains’ll do just as fine.’
‘No. No. That cannot be. It was a cut. Just a cut.’
I could feel the cutpurse’s smirk. Glad in that moment that I was blinded.
‘The Truffle wants his … children.’ The word was almost a question. The thief groped for another. ‘Progeny, then. The ones sprouting out your peepers and maybe some other places, too; not that I’m for looking down there.’
I reached forward with a trembling hand. Afraid in my blindness of what it might find. I knew my fingers had not touched skin.
‘No.’
‘’Fraid it’s to be yes, luv. You’re done for.’
I felt a wrenching pull. I screamed. It was as if the bastard had torn an eye from my skull. The pain radiated from the orbit, down my jaw, reaching my fingers, stabbing at my groin and toes. It was as if he had crushed the orb twixt his fingers.
Gasping, ‘What did you do?’
The words felt thick, garbled. My tongue had swollen. A rumble in my guts and I voided myself, sobbing. What wept down my face was not tears. Goodson help me, I had no eyes. I wanted to wretch. Something came up, spreading my jaw so wide it cracked like thunder. I took a breath.
My last.
As my nostrils closed, I kicked, clawing for air with bloody fingers.
‘Extracted my payment,’ Needle said, smugly. His words grew fainter and fainter. ‘These fellows grow in your flesh, but it’s said that they keep a flash of their food’s memories locked away. You have a lot of secrets, Coinpurse, and I trade in them. I doubt the Truffle would notice if I had just a taste ….’
First They Came For The Pigs was first published in Fungi, Innsmouth Free Press, November 2012.[GdM]
Chadwick Ginther is the Prix Aurora Award nominated author of the Thunder Road Trilogy (Ravenstone Books). His short fiction has appeared recently in On Spec, Tesseracts, and The Exile Book of New Canadian Noir. He lives and writes in Winnipeg, Canada.
An Interview with James A. Moore
Tom Smith
[GdM] What is your opinion on the grimdark sub-genre, and do you see the growing of a grimdark sub-genre as a positive or negative for fantasy as a whole?
[JAM] I think any time you have something that grows the field, it’s a good thing. My counter argument is that the genrefication of the entire field MIGHT make it harder for people to find the books they want to read. The inverse, however, is also true. Any books that increase reading in general are a wonderful thing to me. Best examples I can give? EVERYTHING by Stephen King and J.K. Rowling, both of whom generated massive interest from people who, previous to finding them, weren’t really reading much.
The biggest potential downside to any genre growing, in my eyes, is a sudden downswing in actual stories worth noticing. I’ve seen it a few times before and it takes a few years, but there’s always a risk that publishers will go crazy and try to buy 500% more of a certain type of book than the market can sustain and that a lot of those books will suck.
[GdM] When you find any time to read, which writers do you typically turn to?
[JAM] That’s like asking me what I eat when I am hungry.
I love reading. Between the writing, the research for writing, the plotting, the editing and the requests for possible cover quotes, I don’t have a lot of spare time to read, but among my go to writers are Stephen King, Christopher Golden, Jonathan Maberry, Joe Abercrombie, H.P. Lovecraft, Rio Youers, Michael Moorcock, Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, C.L. Moore, Charlaine Harris, Duane Swierczynski, Paul Tremblay… the list goes on and on and changes by the week.
[GdM] Have you written a character that you would consider the most like you as a person? Conve
rsely, if you lived in that world, what do you think you would be doing?
[JAM] No, not really. Here’s the thing: I find myself remarkably boring. Instead I might find aspects of myself. For example Jonathan Crowley’s personality is primarily composed of all the things I don’t let myself say.
In the Seven Forges series, I’d probably have to say Drask has most or the same personality as me.
What would I be doing in the Seven Forges world? Hopefully exploring.
[GdM] In the Seven Forges universe, the gods take a pretty active role in the lives of the barbarians of the forges. Did you draw on any earthly pantheons for inspiration for them?
[JAM] I tried not to, actually. The thing is, I know a lot of the pantheons, but I wanted something as different as I could manage in this situation. The Daxar Taalor are all war gods. That made for an interesting challenge. The gods of Fellein, however, are a little closer to the Greek and Celtic deities.
[GdM] Without spoiling too much, thus far in your books you haven’t introduced much in the way of what I think of as traditional magic. Will that change in future books in the Seven Forges’ setting?
[JAM] Okay. The best way I can answer that without too many spoilers is that Desh Krohan finally puts his money where his mouth is in the third book. It’s a rather substantial scene and changes the way several characters have thought of him in the past.
[GdM] If you hadn’t caught the writing bug, what career would you like to be pursuing?
[JAM] Comic book illustration. I need work. I wasn't patient or dedicated enough when I was younger, but I’d dig that. Or maybe directing movies. Different medium, similar concept.
[GdM] You can knock back a few drinks with any 3 living people. Who do you choose and why?
Grimdark Magazine Issue #5 ePub Page 3
